Balmoral Castle website ‘crashes’ as £100 gold-dust private tour tickets sell out in 24 hours

GOLD-dust tickets to the public opening up of the interior of King Charles' private Scottish retreat have sold out.

The Scottish Sun exclusively revealed yesterday the surprise move to give an exclusive peak of Royal life this summer.

Visitors will be able to see parts of Balmoral Castle used by the royal family for the first time this summerCredit: Alamy

King Charles has opened up Balmoral Castle for an exclusive tour of the interiorsCredit: Getty

The Balmoral Castle visitor tickets which have sold out in one dayCredit: Northpix

The website placed punters in a queueCredit: Northpix

And the £100 passes to see inside Balmoral Castle have raked in nearly £140,000 for the monarch in less than 24-hours from going on sale.

But it will still be for the relatively few who will get to see inside the Aberdeenshire site with only 40 tickets will be issued each day and come at a hefty price.

This morning, the Balmoral Estate website had an online queue for the briefs for the "adult only experience".

But patient customers missed out after the sought-after tickets had already sold-out by the time it was their turn.

Only a few tickets left on a handful of available days remain but with a more expensive price tag of £150 - but these ones do include an afternoon tea.

Tickets to the normal adult admission are still available for £17.50, which give access to the gardens only but excludes the new interior tour.

Tickets were limited to 40 per day, from July 1 to August 4.

Visitors who wished to grab their chance at viewing the castle were disappointed at how quickly the tickets sold-out as the Castle's website creaked under the demand.

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One said: "The building almost certainly couldn’t take 100x the footfall!

"It seems to have broken the ticketing system as it is…

"Highgrove is half an hour from where I live & £34.50 - although I’ve never been - but as soon as I saw this yesterday I wanted to go - and knew I’d have to save!"

Another wrote: "The Balmoral website crashed.

The late Queen Elizabeth II spent her final days at Balmoral CastleCredit: Reuters

"Demand outpaced supply."

A third added: "More tickets need to be released for the internal castle tour!"

It costs around £3m-a-year to run private-owned Balmoral and half of that comes from tourist-related revenue.

Announcing the hard-to-get tickets, the estate said: "Since its completion in 1855, access to the interior of Balmoral Castle has been restricted to the public, until now.

"For the first time in history, we're thrilled to announce the launch of interior castle private tours - The Balmoral Experience.

"Learn about Balmoral's history and heritage, led by our experienced guides through several of the exquisite rooms within Balmoral Castle.."

Lucky visitors can travel through time from the purchase of the Balmoral Estate by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, through to the present day.

They can also see a selection of rooms within the Castle that are used by Their Majesties The King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family.

Top Royal author Robert Hardman said that he had predicted King Charles would open up Balmoral, where his mother Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022.

Mr Hardman, in his seminal book Charles III. New King. New Court, said: "As well as rehanging many of the pictures, he is busy replacing some of the more threadbare patches of tartan on walls and floors.

"He has even more ambitious plans for the grounds. Soon after his accession, he asked the estate office to begin work on a maze, like the one he has installed at Dumfries House."

"Shaped like a thistle, it is not for his own pleasure - though he loved mazes as a boy.

"It is part of his plans to draw more members of the public to the estate."

The King has now introduced free access to the grounds on certain days when the family are not in residence.

"Balmoral is private property. However, it needs public footfall not just to help pay the bills but to bring benefits to the wider community and to remain in step with other stately homes.

The late Queen’s officials online looked closely at multiple options, including opening throughout the winter months, but the advice was not encouraging.

A former official said: "As with projections for Buckingham Palace, greater access can sometimes mean greater costs.

"The problem is staffing it. You would need to train up a full-time workforce and the projected visitor numbers just do not support that during the winter,’"

"So it only becomes logical to open for just a few months each year."

King Charles's art work, which has adorned everything from whisky and wine bottles to the great galleries of the world, is also to go show at his beloved Balmoral this summer to attract tourists to help pay the bills.

The late Queen used to stay until the first week of October and Balmoral would remain largely closed to the public until the following April.

Only the castle ballroom - where the late Queen's coffin lay at rest - and some of the grounds used to be open to the public during the season.

The King and Queen Camilla usually stay at Birkhall on the estate - their favourite home, and where they honeymooned and have celebrated nearly every wedding anniversary since.